Dr. Thomas Burkhalter is an ethnomusicologist, music journalist, and cultural producer from Switzerland. The founder and director of Norient, he published the book Local Music Scenes and Globalization: Transnational Platforms in Beirut (Routledge) and co-edited The Arab Avant-Garde: Music, Politics, Modernity (Wesleyan University Press), Seismographic Sounds – Visions of a New World (Norient) and Out of the Absurdity of Life – Globale Musik (Norient/Traversion). He works as a researcher and project leader at the University of Basel and the University of Arts Bern (HKB), financed by the Swiss National Foundation (SNF). As the director of the Norient Musikfilm Festival, a documentary filmmaker and audio-visual performer, he places emphasis on transdisciplinary approaches between theory and practice.